I rode with an ice road trucker to the Arctic Circle | Hacker News Reader

I rode with an ice road trucker to the Arctic Circle

freightwaves.com

243 pointsjjslocum3160 comments

I once flew to Ft St John from Vancouver then hitched to Liard Hot Springs Park where I camped the night in -36C, then hitched to Whitehorse where I worked for a few months, then realized that if I was going to see the Arctic before I had to leave the Yukon I'd better go NOW (in March). So I hitched from Whitehorse to the start of the Dempster Hwy, then hitched all the way to Inuvik (got a lift from a former mayor) where I visited for about 24 hours. It was that short because the last truck leaving for the ice bridges broke up was leaving the next day. Spent the next 5 days driving back down to the Lower Mainland. But that included crossing those melting ice bridges... Invigorating and terrifying. At one point, past the rivers, I asked the driver what all those slightly round brownish mounds were alongside the Dempster? Some kind of frost push-up? No! They were caribou carcasses! The right-of-way someone mentioned meant that these trucks would just barrel down the Dumpster and if a herd or bunch of caribou or whatever were in the road, the truck would plow through them. I asked why ... and he told me that if a truck tried to brake but lost control and went off the raised berm road that is the Dempster, the truck would sink too far into the permafrost before they could get a tow truck up there, and it would be stuck there forever, slowly sinking deeper into the permafrost. It was a wild few months in my younger days, let me tell ya!

Not sure when your trip was but I was able to drive to Inuvik during the summer months on the Dempster highway back in late eighties or maybe very early nineties. No ice roads/bridges were required, just a spare tire. I remember bad mosquitos. I can’t recall any ferries after the one in Dawson but maybe there were. Road-tripping up there sure is fun though.

I spent a summer working in a hardware store up in Fairbanks, and my host/landlord decided to take me up to the Arctic Circle in his CJsomething Jeep. We were only a few miles up from the Circle when we kicked up a rock that punctured our oil pan. Thankfully, we were less than a mile from the last service station before the Arctic Circle, so we hitched a ride from a passing truck, and bought a bunch of oil and duct tape and just kept feeding the engine oil every few miles until we got back to Fairbanks.

Never did make it up to the Arctic Circle, though.

> He barely took photos on his phone before he moved to Alaska; now, he has about 10,000 of them. Most of them are in the same place, just different seasons. The long grasses change colors — red, pink, beige. That makes the mountains look different week to week. And then there’s the sky. Because of the ice crystals that form in the atmosphere during the long winters, “sun dogs” appear where it looks like there are three suns in the sky. Most fantastic might be the aurora borealis, which can make it look like the sky is swirling, shooting fingers down. “It will make your insides feel funny,” Mustang said.

I wish he would post his pictures somewhere. I’m sure a lot of them must be fantastic.

I lived in the Yukon for 4 years, it truly is magical and hard to believe. I drove a few hours south to get into Coastal Alaska, and ~8 hours North into the Arctic Circle which I did a dozen or so times, summer and winter.

-40 is a magical thing, and it's like being on a different planet.

I didn't post all my photos and adventures, but what I do have can be seen here [1]. I've never lived anywhere with more hiking, fishing, camping, biking, hunting, snowboarding, back country snowboarding, winter camping, remote wilderness, white water paddling and all the rest. Unreal.

[1] http://theroadchoseme.com/salmon-fishing-with-bears-in-haine...

(I didn't tag the posts too well, you'll have to click "Next article" at the bottom of each one to keep seeing more adventures through all the seasons)

This might be my most "out of this world" Christmas (and I've had a few!)

http://theroadchoseme.com/mendenhall-glacier-juneau-alaska

Been following you for ages. Don't know if you remember but I saw your jeep parked in Tassie when you went hiking for a few days and we were travelling around there at the same time - I sent you the pic with my grey one. Keep it up!

Haha, yes, I remember very well!

Thanks for the kind words.

-40 and winter camping… does not compute.

The best way is with a wood stove inside the tent. Yes, it's very common.

You can go fancy with an "Arctic Oven" like this: http://theroadchoseme.com/liard-hot-springs-winter

Or old school with a wall tent like this: http://theroadchoseme.com/haines-pass-camping

How do you mitigate carbon monoxide buildup? I was always told that stoves in enclosed areas are a no-no, but clearly you survived to tell the tale, so there must be some safe way to do it :P

those tents typically have chimney holes!

Look up "hot tenting" on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hot+tent+winter...

Check out “outdoor boys” on YouTube for a crash course.

That's pretty great because -40F = -40C :-)

I camped in -42C or so (every degree matters at those temps) once and slept in a quinzee which is basically a snow fort build from digging out compacted snow. The temp outside at night was -42 and the temp in the quinzee was about -20. Coldest night of my life.

Nice! I just simply cannot bring myself to do it... Not even in winter in our garden! Coldest night I ever passed, with the kids nonetheless, in a tent was just so slightly above freezing.

You do get to nice places so if temperature is no issue for you!

> was just so slightly above freezing

It usually feels much colder near freezing because of the humidity.

Once it's past about -30 it's extremely dry, and it feels much less cold. I'm much happier at -20 to -40 than just above or below freezing. Also snow just wipes off and you don't get wet.

The coldest day of my life was snowboarding in Juneau, AK. It was only -30C or so, but it was really, really humid. I was wearing everything I wear when it's -45, and I was freezing all day. I mean I couldn't feel my feet, hands, face and then had to constantly do pushups and jumping jacks to try and stay mobile.

How can it be humid at -30?

Literally on the ocean, which is still liquid. You have to go further North before it freezes

I've lived my entire life in Michigan and I've seen -20 F more than a few times. Once I had a 1995 Ford Ranger and when it got that cold the speedometer would stop working. It was weird driving around for a couple of days with no way of knowing how fast I was going. Then the temperature would get above zero and all of a sudden just like magic the speedometer would be working again.

When it gets good and cold (-48C / -55F), even your tires will freeze flat on the bottom and won't be round.

The first minute or two of slow driving is actually bumpy until they warm up a it (even really, really high quality winter tires do this).

Also strange things happens like the plastic around your gear shift shatters, CV joint covers just tear, your seat is frozen solid so your head is on the roof, etc. etc.

Did some camping (with only sleeping bag) at -40C, works great. The original plan was to build an iglo, but we learned too late that snow does not stick below a certain temperature.

Luckily we had a snow storm, so soon after tugging in we were covered by an arms length of warm and insulating snow (I remember being worried to not being able of to keep my breathing tunnel operational).

That "inside the ice cave" picture is unreal.

I’ve experienced -35C in Harbin during a winter (2005). My digital camera battery kept dying, it made taking pictures of ice sculptures (including a full ice bar) really hard. What is weird is that Harbin is super populated and not that far north (it’s a couple of degrees south of Seattle).

What was weird is that the bus I took from Changchun had a digital thermometer up front where you could see it fall from around -25 to -35 during the trip.

My mom was born and raised in Alaska, but Ketchikan is closer to Seattle in climate and distance than anchorage.

> What is weird is that Harbin is super populated and not that far north (it’s a couple of degrees south of Seattle).

Latitude has quite a bit of influence on climate but insolation isn't the whole story. Winds generally blow east to west at those latitudes. Harbin's air flow is from the interior of Asia, vs the North Pacific for Seattle and Ketchikan.

Seattle - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_climate

Harbin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humid_continental_climate#Hot/...

Oh, totally. Siberian blasts are no joke.

The irony of taking lots of pictures of a place that is rapidly being destroyed by the industry you're delivering supplies to.

It's true, this article is about oil drilling supplies.

Humanity is doomed. :(

Pictures don't do a lot of those scenes justice.

The enormity and clarity of what are multiple depths to a lens just can't be captured in a still.

The aurora is a notable exception. Long exposure is key to gathering enough light for detecting vibrant colors. I suspect that pupil dilation (via diagnostic eye drops, MDMA, etc.) could help, but I haven't tested this hypothesis.

If you have a good storm and are far enough up to the pole, you do not need long exposure. Aurora was already famous before photography.

Aurora colors are visible to the naked eye. I've seen it myself.

Likewise, but I meant as vibrant as in photos.

Yes, but I will never drive the road to Prudhoe Bay, so pictures are the nearest I will ever get to seeing it.

When my mom came up here to visit, her first time to Alaska, I don't think her phone left camera mode. I didn't have a smartphone when I moved up so never had that problem, but boy I still try sometimes.

As a diesel engine mechanic by trade some of the stuff these professional drivers endure in these temperatures is just unreal to me. Performing a predrive check in -60f weather is insane to me.

We got an old logging peterbilt from yukon in our shop once. Definitely driven, definitely well maintained. Popping the hood there was a big orange sticker near the radiator warning us "DO NOT FILL UNDER 60C." It stumped us for a bit until we found out truckers in the north sometimes never run engine coolant because it may freeze up. Pretty surreal.

So, if it's cold enough they leave out the coolant, converting it to an air-cooled diesel?

Wouldn’t temperature difference be a problem?

Difference between what?

The inner part of the engine and outer parts, running coolant would even out the temperatures but without coolant some parts will become much hotter than others and could warp or create stresses that the engine was not designed for. I assume these people know something that I don't and I guess diesel engines can be quite forgiving.

I bet they have beefy air to oil coolers as well. Still, I'm surprised that the engine can take any sustained load without water as there would be no cooling around the cylinders.

There's still fluid coolant in the system: air.

My friend is a heavy duty mechanic working diamond mines up north above artic circle. He gave my kids a slide show of all the crazy stuff he's worked on. Super human will power and constant problem solving. Grown men breaking every week up there.

"he had 15 hours of driving in a 20-hour window. His on-duty time was 80 hours, too."

As a European, these stats are nuts to me. No wonder she mentions that drivers chug energy drinks - that can't be a reasonable or safe working time in any industry, much less in one where you're operating heavy machinery. Or do people think we are soft with our 8-9h driving time max per long rest regulations?

You can't drive more than 8h in any 24h period, and it isn't hard to bust them when they do due to simple physics.

Not in the US[1] . And truckers here have been cooking their books since they were actual paper and pen.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-forc...

I had a CDL-A a long time ago, that was the rule then. Big shops made sure you stuck to it (or so they said) but I also did here that they will indirectly force drivers to drive a lot more than that. When you hear about truckers making six figures, that isn't from 8hr days for sure. They even gave you a tip during training: if you open your truck's door, you're losing money. What happens when they force you is you don't get the trips you want or that are lucrative if you have a reputation of doing bare minimum.

I got you, I have tons of family who are truckers and the stories abound of shady company tactics. When GPS first started being used in trucks they would take a bucket or something and cover it, it simply 'lost service'.

None of this is new but it's definitely getting markedly worse.

Even still, I'd never heard of some of the evil things they are doing these days like closing the yard gates so they have to keep rolling.

Sorry to be pedantic but in EU the daily maximum as prescribed by law is 9 hours per day of driving, which can be extended to 10 hours twice per week. There are maximum hourly limits specified per week and per fortnight along with prescribed lengths of daily and weekly rest periods.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/LSU/?uri=CELEX:32...

Sorry, I meant the US

There are often different rules for ice truckers than normal truckers, at least in Canada (eg Manitoba they are exempt from driving time restrictions).

Commercial interests vs. collateral damage in the form of accidents, truckers with health issues, etc. are basically balanced differently.

Tired truckers falling asleep behind the wheel causing accidents tends to be not appreciated in Europe. And it's a reason that they check this very strictly. I remember when these rules started getting tightly enforced. At the time there were lots of incidents with truckers driving way longer than they should literally falling asleep while driving.

Fatal accident rates with trucks in the US are up in recent years: https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/road-users/large-t...

"Also in 2021, 117,300 large trucks were involved in crashes resulting in an injury, a 12% increase from 2020. Since 2016, the number of trucks involved in injury crashes has increased 15% and the involvement rate per 100 million large truck miles driven has increased 3% to 36."

Not great statistics.

It doesn't sound ideal, but I guess the risk of causing danger to third parties is lower driving through Alaska than round the M25 or the Périphérique, simply due to numbers and space. I've never been to Alaska, but in the lower 48 folks seem to treat truck drivers with more caution and space than we do in Europe, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're "safer" even with more fatigue.

Part of the thing is that long haul truckers themselves often prefer these hours. They would rather just get the trip over with and back to their family than spend 16 hours at a motel in Coldfoot, and pocket the difference.

They could run double crews but you don't get that much consolation sitting in a passenger seat vs a drivers seat.

Obviously - I know many European truckers who hate these regulations. Most will tell you stories of being stuck 30 minutes away from home but being unable to drive a little bit longer because the fines are Draconian and with electronic logging you can't fake it.

And honestly, from like a human standpoint - I get that. But these rules are there to ensure their safety as well as the safety of everyone else on the road. Tiredness is a massive factor in accidents, and I'm sure we've all driven a little bit more than reasonable "because I'm almost home". Being a trucker is a profession so it has professional standards.

Tired truckers is a conversation that comes up in the US somewhat regularly. And some states are imposing more serious regulations. But I don't think we are seeing it enough as a cause of accidents to treat it like a crisis. As other commenters have pointed out, for long-haul trucking in the US (and other rural areas) you are mostly dealing with highway driving on pretty desolate routes. Mile for mile truckers in the US are still some of the safest drivers.

I think Alaska just stretches this to the extreme given the unique experiences. Just having truckers pull off to the side of the road in Tundra 300 miles away from services is probably a MUCH bigger safety liability than long hours.

I did this road in an SUV two years back and the experience is surreal. One noticable different is in how trucks drive this road. On a regular highway, they are calm and easy going but on this road, trucks have the right of way and they don't compromise their right any time.

Regardless, the beauty is like I have never seen before. Skinny dipping in Arctic was bonus on top.

>they don't compromise their right any time.

For good reason.

Braking a heavy truck on a ice road could be a death sentence.

It sounds like it would be very unsafe to drive on a truck-priority road (especially since, as the other comment points out: there's a good reason trucks are given priority)...

Then again, in general, the interstate highway system in the US was scary, when my family used it for a road trip. I left the experience thinking: "I wish there were more train tracks than roads..."

> the interstate highway system in the US was scary, when my family used it for a road trip.

Out of curiosity, why? Because trucks are permitted in the left lane?

I won't say that Americans are good drivers, but other than the very busiest routes like I-95 through the Northeast Corridor, I also wouldn't call our interstates "scary", even for someone unaccustomed to driving as much as we do. And in major cities, it's less "scary" than "slow due to traffic". Our speed limits are lower, but ignoring the posted limits and just looking at behavior, the speeds aren't that different.

>On a regular highway, they are calm

I don't live anywhere near the Arctic circle and this is not the case.

I once did I95 in a NorEasterly winter storm. Blizzard snow all the way down to the Georgia/SC border. I was gingerly picking my way down the highway hoping a tree wouldn’t decide to give up the ghost and fall on us. The truckers whizzed by at a truly alarming speed and they weren’t being calm and easy-going… Neither was I, what with the ice, snow, murderous trees and kamikaze truckers!

Is that a euphemism for an unspoken licence for vehicular homicide?

Would a trucker swerve to avoid a pedestrian, or run them over? Would they ram a stalled vehicle off the road at speed?

Struggling to understand the implications of their entitlement.

I mean FTA- the conditions seem absolutely treacherous and non-industrial traffic is explicitly warned about the dangers. I would imagine that there are many situations on that route where evasive action would be more dangerous to both parties. Clearly not a situation or “license” that a truck driver would want.

Also not sure there are any pedestrians lol

Check out the plan to truck gold ore from a mine to a processing facility 240 miles away, passing through Fairbanks, with an 86 ton, 95 foot double trailer truck every 24 minutes, around the clock, for 4 to 5 years.

https://manhchoh.com/ore-transportation/

https://www.dermotcole.com/reportingfromalaska/2023/8/24/wit...

https://fm.kuac.org/transportation/2023-06-15/kinross-to-lau...

The enthusiasm Alaskans have for destroying their land as fast as possible is pretty breathtaking.

The job market is a tad different there than in SF. Or used to be, anyway.

If the choice is drinking yourself to death out of boredom, or having a job…

There is also a lot of Alaska. More Alaska than most humans would be able to see in a lifetime of trying.

Alaska is massive, and their commodities driven economy is what allows them to provide UBI to all their residents.

Any idea or any studies on how that (the UBI) is working out?

It's complicated. This is a fairly good read. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/5/20849020/alaska-...

Some takeaways:

- It's a fairly modest payout

- The payout is very dependent on oil revenues in a given year. (Alaska doesn't have income tax or sales tax revenue sources.)

- It probably does some good in a state with a large rural population and high unemployment

- It influences politics

Thanks

It’s (I think) misleading to characterize the AK permanent fund dividend as UBI, even if only because many people perceive UBI conceptually as meeting basic needs. $1500 a year pre-tax (give or take) isn’t much at all. At best it’s a less-than-adequate COLA even in the most developed towns. Presently, the statutory amount is occasionally hitting double that but somehow the state has contrived to skim it for the budget shortfalls. However, many Alaskans think it preferable to garnish the dividend payout before seeing a state-level income or sales tax implemented. As the resource development moves overseas, the economy in AK will only shrink and these choices will become more difficult, ultimately ending in worst of both worlds (no dividend and new taxes).

The Alaska PFD has decreased poverty within Alaska by 20% [0]. An extra $2-3k can have a massive impact in a state where a significant minority lives in rural/isolated regions and/or reservations. That additional $2-3k added with SNAP benefits has helped thousands of Alaskans a year keep food on their table.

In addition, Native Corporations (ANSCA) help alleviate poverty further by spreading commodities income to all members of that native tribe (eg. all Inuit from Utquiatvik will get a check from the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation thanks to revenue generated by Shell and Cheveron).

[0] - https://iseralaska.org/static/legacy_publication_links/2016_...

Instead of unkind words I'll just quote the State Constitution.

Alaska State Constitution Article 8 Section 1

It is the policy of the State to encourage the settlement of its land and the development of its resources by making them available for maximum use consistent with the public interest.

That does seem to clearly describe the problem.

Every state in the union enjoyed the same policy until 1970. Resource development is the base of the economy. We don't maintain our modern way of life without it. We either develop our own resources or pay somebody else for theirs.

In Encounters with the Archdruid Charles Park is described as believing that “if copper were to be found under the White House, the White House should be moved.” I've struggled with that idea and gone back and forth on how I stand about it. But the line has stuck with me for years.

Go look for some mines or other developed resources from 100 years ago. They are not easy to find despite most of them being well documented. I live in a rainforest so things get swallowed by the forest quickly. 100 years here means all exposed wood is nearly gone, iron is a pile of rust and the trees are almost 2 feet across.

Seeing first hand how the environment recovers after disruption tempers the environmental protectionism proclivity. Sure blatant disregard for the environment like dumping barrels of waste in a river is bad. That doesn't mean all resource use and development is.

Go look for some mines the desert sometime. 100 years here is nothing, wood barely decomposes and iron lasts basically forever.

Saw a similar plan to run trucks carrying sand in Iceland every 15 minutes round the clock from the mine to a harbor 100 miles away:

https://www.icelandreview.com/nature-travel/proposed-sand-mi...

Gulp, an island decides to export sand while see levels are rising

A geology student in Iceland told me that actually the new land is rising faster than the sea-level rise - the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates grow apart there and mantle is being pushed to the surface.

no way to do this better with rail??

I liked this article. I still think my favorite article about riding along with a long haul truck driver is A Fleet of One (2003) by John McPhee.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/02/17/a-fleet-of-one

McPhee is truly a national treasure. If you're interested, that article was one of several published in his book Uncommon Carriers which includes a train and river barge voyage. Looking for a Ship is also great as it follows a merchant marine through various stages of that job.

The Curve of Binding Energy is a fascinating study of Theodore Taylor, the engineer behind the smallest nuke warhead in the world, and his concerns that terrorists may be able to build warheads themselves.

Pretty much any McPhee book or article is fascinating. His book Oranges is all about farming oranges, processing orange juice so it can sit in refrigerated vats for months (and how it is reconstituted through "flavor packs" that give it back the OJ flavors after long storage) and all kind of other orange stories. No matter what rabbit hole McPhee jumps down, his research and writing are nothing short of engrossing.

I just finished Looking for a Ship a few weeks ago. I have read Oranges as well, and Annals of the Former World, and some of his shorter pieces in a Best Of collection. I am hit and miss on his writing, but when it hits, it hits hard for me.

414 miles is not some incredible distance (I’m sure anyone who’s done a cross country road trip has done longer), but 414 miles at 35 miles an hour sounds miserable.

It is interesting how fish-out-of-water the story is, given that the author covers that industry.

But if the story is correct about it being 3X (or more) the average truck driver wages in the lower 48...

CoL is also 3-4x in Alaska because almost everything is flown in or shipped.

Off the road system and in villages sure, but in Anchorage where I've lived for over a decade...not really. Maybe 1.5, and some things like avocados are kind of a joke, but I've lived quite a few places in the lower 48 and it's just not that bad (especially since wages are also higher)

Really :) Did you see the pics of some of the roads, a mile on dirt roads is slows you down quite a bit.

That it is through necessity rather than choice doesn’t seem to make the prospect any nicer!

Not if you are paid by time instead of distance.

414 miles on gravel roads with no air ride sounds horrible.

It’s one of the most beautiful places on earth. It is the opposite of terrible. Going slowly is a joy

Any beautiful place gets boring after years if the same scenery.

Not according to the truck driver in the article.

He went there only once no

The truck driver makes two trips a week

> It is interesting how fish-out-of-water the story is, given that the author covers that industry.

Yeah, though I bet a tech journalist who sat in on a software product being developed would also be surprised by a lot of things. There's just a big difference between writing about something and doing it.

(Also, that article would be much more boring than this one.)

And I got the sense from that article that truck driving in Alaska is very different than in the lower 48, even to the extent that the driving is different (that bit about shifting into higher gear to go down slopes)

Trucking is my dream. I hope to reach a point in my life where I can take an extended sabbatical from software and drive over the road.

You could do it right now!

Same! I've grown up around the industry and while it certainly has it's issues it's one of the few jobs outside of tech I've always wanted to do.

My grandfather drove oil trucks all over West Texas and I worshipped the ground he walked on. Once when I was a child I told him I wanted to be a trucker too. He sat me down and made it very clear that I did not want to be a trucker hah. Driving trucks is a hard life which is probably why there’s lots of country songs about it.

I have the same dream, but I try to remind myself that I probably have a very romanticized and idealized view of what it really means to be a trucker. I'm sure it's a grueling job.

My dad drove trucks and he also made it very clear - the job can be enjoyable when things are going as planned, you're sitting behind the wheel and there's nothing but empty road in front of you. But things don't always go as planned - something breaks down and you're in a middle of nowhere at 3am lying in mud underneath the axle trying to figure out how the hell you're going to fix it with your employer ringing you every 5 minutes asking for an update.

Make your fortune first. John Oliver did a good story on just how badly the industry exploits its drivers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phieTCxQRLA

History Channel's Ice Road Truckers was one of my favorite shows. I know it's edited for the drama, but I think is a nice and interesing view of the job for an outsider.

Eva zu Beck has some interesting YouTube videos about driving the Dalton in a Land Rover Defender: https://youtu.be/rBXh4cnTYhg?feature=shared

Truckers: the spine that connects the world and makes all our commerce possible.

Somewhat related - my kids and I have enjoyed a few of the documentaries in this series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN_6jfIoYE4

Generally, truckers dealing with often hilariously bad roads. Bogged for days. Sleeping under the trucks and hoping animals don't attack them.

Beautiful photos but i have to nitpick

>Exhausted and hungry, I was happy to get to Coldfoot. It’s allegedly the world’s farthest north truck stop.

Coldfoot seems to be on 67*N. This is similar to Kiruna in Sweden and south of Narwik in Norway - town of 15k people. I bet that there are some truck stops there as well :D

There is also Tromsø, Norway with a population of almost 70k. We're at 69 degrees north. I'm pretty sure we have a truck stop close by.

The photos in the article really made me want to watch a documentary about the Alaskan wilderness, especially the tundra during summertime.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Not exactly what you're looking for, but for anyone interested in Alaska I would recommend checking Peter Santenello's Alaska series on YouTube. It's people and culture focused on everyday life. You'll get a little bit of nature, not much, still very interesting.

Look up Dick Proenneke.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proenneke

I found out about him from HN:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

It’s worth tracking down these videos and watching them:

https://www.dickproenneke.com/

Sometimes they show up on YouTube or the Internet Archive.

Nice recommendation.

My grandpa and uncle built a cabin on Twin Lakes over the summers with Dick Proenneke. I've got pictures of them together felling trees and hauling logs to build the cabins. Now, you can only get to the cabins by float plane.

The cabins have been taken over by the State Park now, and they've been restored too. One of their cabins is now the ranger station, and the other is kept as a "stuck in time" snapshot from the 50s and 60s. Pretty neat.

Thanks for posting this! I'm someone who's grown up in and around the trucking industry and this was a very interesting read.

Building roads across a wilderness to haul stuff to extract oil to heat the atmosphere to make money seems kind of insane. But the pics were good. I just wish we humans took better care of things.

I wonder if airships would be a better solution in terms of lift capacity?

I don't think the average (or even a minority of HN readers) realize how much they'd have to give up if we'd stop.

The difficult question is how much will we have to give up if we don't?

The more difficult question is who gets to decide.

Even if no identifiable person gets to decide, the climate may force a whole series of individual decisions. Or a wildfire decides for you.

I think the more salient question is WHO will have to give WHAT up if we don't stop?

I assume most HN readers work in IT with decent salaries, putting us in the 90th+ percentile globally. We'll still be drinking wine in our off-grid A/C'd homes when the rest of the world suffers.

Hard stop is practically impossible, but a transition is something people have been talking about for years, and is finally starting to happen as the fraction of new cars sold that are EVs rises.

And that it would degrade our ability to defend ourselves to the point that someone else would come here and take it.

Veritasium posted a video summarising the state of airships ~10 days ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjBgEkbnX2I

Wouldn't building a railroad be a more cost-efficient way in Alaska than trucking?

Depends on the terrain, and for such a lightly-trafficked place that would probably be uneconomic.

China could do it in Tibet which seems to be similarly populated/trafficked, on top of thawing permafrost. It's only 414 miles as well whereas the Tibet one is 1215 miles.

> Tibet which seems to be similarly populated/trafficked

Tibet has millions of people. Prudhoe Bay has a couple thousand people and some oilfields.

1. Somehow I always thought Alaska was 100% snow covered 24/7/365

2. Triple trailers? Nice!

The sun is up for 20-24 hours a day in the summer - I've had plenty of days getting sunburnt at 1am!

it gets quite hot in summers. And also too many mosquitoes

Took a motorcycle roadtrip up to Prudhoe Bay a decade ago. Roads closed in Oregon and California due to snow, hottest day of the trip was 90+F going into Delta Junction, AK.

Obviously not a good application for an EV.

> An executive at Alaska West Express, another local trucking company, told me in May that such truck drivers can make $150,000 to $170,000 a year, in addition to benefits.

That's ~$200k/truck/year of incentive to replace them with auto pilots, when they're good enough. But those drivers do more than drive. Maybe they'll replace one driver per truck with one mechanic per convoy of self-driven trucks.

And an automated truck can spend a lot more time on the road, released from a meager human driver's duty cycle.

It's one thing to get an economy car to drive a person around San Francisco, it's an entirely different thing to drive these trucks in these conditions.

It would be more reasonable to build a freight train line than to build self driving tricks that can do what 95% of human drivers can't

I'd make a long term bet on this. I think that it won't be very many years until auto-pilots are safer than any humans in any conditions, like chess software. Auto pilot senses and reaction times can be far better, and we're watching AI capabilities increase at an accelerated rate. And huge economic investments in the problems.

If you're a young person at least, don't plan on a long career driving a truck.

I agree, but I don't think we will remove the human.

New jet liners have had the technical ability to fly and land automatically, yet pilots still typically manually land unless there are bad visibility or other conditions. In those conditions they often autoland.

Why would this be any different?

I'd expect we see some kind of hybrid approach.

However much some people will resent it, I strongly suspect being able to drive a car is going to be a pretty essential life skill for people who aren't willing/able to restrict their travel to mostly urban cores for at least a few decades.

There are already a lot of people who can't drive for medical or other reasons, and probably more people who drive but shouldn't. Whether you think self driving is coming or not, our systems should be set up to support them.

Growing up in the UK I didn't get around to passing my driving test until I was about to move to California in my early 30s. Being able to drive in the UK is certainly useful but is definitely not necessary.

Living in San Francisco now I have pretty good access to nature by car but I still miss being able to take a train out to a stop in a tiny village, go walking in the hills, end up at a pub for a few beers and a meal and take a train home.

Driving provides a certain freedom (I really enjoy driving for pleasure in California!), but not having to drive provides a different sort of freedom.

"definitely not necessary"

If you live in any kind of rural area bus services are likely to be pretty poor and if you aren't next to a railway station then what do you do? Cars are as important in rural areas in the UK as much as any other country.

Edit: Of course, the proportion of people in this position in the UK is probably relatively low but they do exist - I'm one!

I find a lot of people adapt their lifestyles to their transportation options and vice versa. I know of people who live in Boston without cars and they're mostly just not inclined to leave the city as much unless they're doing activities with friends who have vehicles. On the other hand, all the people I know who do a lot of activities outside the city own cars--and even tend to move out of the city over time.

I used to live in central Edinburgh and I walked to work, my wife walked to work and our son walked to school. We did own a car but used it rarely.

Now we live in a rural area (which was our choice) and we now have two cars and pretty much have to use them to get anywhere - although I do drive to the train station to get the train into Edinburgh.

Bus coverage in rural areas of the UK is variable but it’s on a completely different level to the US where I now live.

The high school I went to growing up had people travel in from all over the county by public transport (train and bus). I certainly wouldn’t choose to live in a rural area without a car but people did!

"More than a quarter of routes in county and rural areas of the country have been lost in the past decade, with passenger numbers falling sharply."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/19/rural-bus-se...

NB I'm in Scotland but I doubt if its much better here.

Maybe it will be a compromise where the roads have special markers that are easy for machines to process.

They won't be good enough for at least a decade, if not significantly more. Too much can go wrong on such roads with such oddly weighted freight.

That time will be gone like a flash, and we'll be reading about how we can't afford to let humans drive trucks any more since so much can go wrong on such roads with such oddly weighted freight.

Have you ever driven on icy gravel roads?

I get that it's hard, but not why it's fundamentally harder than beating a grandmaster at chess.

Is the gravel loose or packed? Was there a wet spot that will cause a loss of traction later on when the water on the tire freezes? Is that rut solid or soft? That spot looks frozen but there's standing water around it. Can it eyeball how deep the mud may be in a spot to decide whether it's ok to cross or attempt to maneuver around? There's moose tracks here, be cautious. There is more to it than just "hey let's automate this"

Edit, more: tree down across the road, truck can't drive over it. Get out and wrap a chain around it to move it. Busted axle, how will it fix that? Flat tire? Mechanic used distilled water like a dumbass and it froze. Road sign was taken out by an accident, guardrail is missing, hope you arent using those to determine how to keep on track.

Yup, and you haven't even dealt with one other driver on the road yet.

That's a laughable statement. Chess is a perfect fit for computer problem solving.

Chess involves an opponent that's doing their best to cause trouble.

Driving on icy gravel, that's just a physics simulation, with no opponents.

The hard part of self-driving is vision, with hard constraints on real-time and power supply — how long that takes (especially given the enormous pile of scenarios we don't think about when trying to list them but do know how to deal with when we encounter them), I don't want to guess, as I think it could be anywhere from negative 6 months to positive 16 years.

I think the summer season this will be logical and doable. Everybody can do this driving. But the truckers get paid for the entire year. How would a self driven truck go when there is near zero visibility? They will stop and wait for a snow storm to stop. Human drivers however will just go on, knowing that if something is on their road it is impossible to avoid.

I do wonder why autopilot hasn't seen more trucking application yet, given (a) how much trucking is highway driving and (b) hours restrictions. A full-autonomous situation where the driver can sleep for the highway section while still handling the parking and loading issues at either end would seem very sensible.

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